I'm still here! Just distracted by real life...

How prisons profit.

We must move humanity to Mars.

An apple a day will actually do you a world of good.

Biking across Africa.

Saving our post offices one by one.

What you can do with this here newfangled technology!

Google and a Blackberry help a dad deliver a baby.

The Copenhagen Wheel makes your bike a hybrid:



Hacking a Predator drone!

Just don't blog while biking....

In New York City, sales of electric bikes rose 50 percent this year, according to NYCeWheels and online, Amazon.com reports demand for electric bikes skyrocketed 6,000 percent in July.

Elsewhere, electric bikes are viewed as an attractive alternative to cars, especially when navigating narrow European roads are confronting increasing urban traffic. Nearly 90,000 electric bicycles were sold in the Netherlands. In Germany, 60,000 electric bikes were sold, according to area associations.

In terms of price, it often depends of the battery. Amazon.com sells an IZIP bike using a lead-acid battery for less than $1,000, For slightly more, you can buy a bike powered by a nickel-hydride battery. For more than $2,500 you can purchase an electric bicycle powered by the same lithium-ion batteries that are in your laptop computer.

If you can't taser them, just run them over

A car collides into cyclists participating in a race in Mexico's northern border city of Matamoros, Sunday June 1, 2008. At least one person was killed and 14 injured when a driver slammed into a bicycle race. (AP Photo/Jose Fidelino Vera Hernandez)

(click photo for source)

Bicyclists deserve to be tasered

Just for being .. ah... irritating:

A bicyclist tells an incredible story of police brutality after being stopped for riding his folding bicycle away from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport after a flight in September.

Stephan Orsak, writing at his Greencycle website, said he was "rudely accosted, assaulted with battery," and tasered. He says he was complying with all the laws of the airport and Minnesota rules of the road at the time of the incident.

After he was hospitalized for observation, the 135-pound violinist was thrown in jail for 8 hours and eventually charged with six counts of obstructing officers, failure to comply, etc.; the usual charges you'll see in cases like this.

Orsak says a preliminary hearing on the charges is coming up later this month.

The bizarre chain of events started when an airport policeman started yelling out the window of his squard car at Orsak for riding his bicycle on Outbound Road at the terminal.

He stopped and the officer gave Orsak some contradictory orders about where he could and could not ride. Just for the record, there was no sign prohibiting bicycles on that road at the time. After some discussion, Orsak tried to leave, he was thrown to the ground, picked up, accosted with a taser and arrested.

On his website, Orsak says:

"It must be understood that from the onset that I was treated disrespectfully and as a second class citizen. My presence on the road, though absolutely legal, must have been an annoyance to Officer Wingate. I was clearly profiled simply for being a cyclist, a clear violation of civil rights."

Orsak's blog has received dozens of comments in support, and the RoadGuy blog at the Star Tribune website has received many responses to the story. His story -- with a warning -- also was posted on the BikeAccess.net website.

Go check out his story. It's an amazing case of police brutality and coverup. Let's wish him luck.

Welcome to the New World Order. Where Tasering is commonplace and always called for.

Update 6/6: I was informed in comments this case was a year old, and that the case had already come to court. Orsak received a stayed sentence. Good to hear.

What I'm most interested in is the attitude of the police, their belief that tasering is not harmful and is too quickly used in unnecessary ways. Where are they getting this encouragement to misuse such a weapon?

(edited for clarity)